My clothes drier stopped working this morning. (Just stopped. No
smoke, sparks, explosions or personal injury — very anticlimactic, for
me.) I thought there could be some cosmic connection between that and
the potential income from my short story connection, since it’s coming
out in just weeks or days, so I did some basic math.

Yeah. I’m not optimistic enough to think I’m going to sell that many copies before I get tired of hanging stuff on the line.

Emily and I spent all morning working in separate places, then joined up for an outdoor lunch in the plaza area beside the Allen County Public Library's main branch. Perfect location, perfect weather, perfect company. And now ... back to writing!

Most kids love to see a big fire
engine, with all the bells and whistles on it. Since Albion just received a new
one (fire engine, not kid), I thought I’d give you all a little overview of
what a fire engine is and how it operates, ignoring the fact that most don’t
come with bells or whistles anymore (fire engines, not kids … usually).

The Albion Fire Department has a
twenty year truck replacement plan, and the one being replaced is 24 years old,
so you can see why they were anxious to get to it. The idea is to avoid the
situation we ran into in the 80’s: The first time I responded to a major house
fire was in a 1952 engine, which meant that at 28, it was ten years older than
me.

That’s 82, in car years.

It was a very cool truck. However,
while a 1930 biplane is a very cool aircraft, you’d want to update your air
force every once in awhile.

The traditional term for these
trucks is engines, although they’d been called pumpers around here for decades.
The Feds prefer “engine” and so do I, but it’s a pretty silly argument: For
them to be successful, the trucks need both engines and pumps.

Ironically, Albion’s original fire
engine was called an engine, but didn’t have one; just a pump. It was hauled by
hand to a fire scene, and then pumped by hand. I think I can safely say we’ve
improved since then.

Okay, so what do we need for an
effective fire engine?

Well, tires. Tires are good. Also, a
steering wheel with which to turn the tires. You think I jest, but some very
early fire engines had to be picked up and carried, and when they finally got
wheels those early wheels often didn’t turn – the firefighters would have to
pick the engine up and change directions when they got to an intersection.

They were a lot lighter then.

Also, I mentioned an engine for the
engine. It has to be powerful, capable of getting a truck full of equipment,
firefighters, and water to the scene. Due to new Federal emission standards on
the engine engines, the estimated cost of a fire truck has increased by around
$15,000. When asked if they’d help pay for that, the Federal Government said …
nothing.

Did I mention the water? The new
truck carries a thousand gallons on board, which is especially helpful out in
rural areas where there are no hydrants. Ask any farmer, and they’ll tell you
hydrants don’t just spring out of the ground.

And, yeah, a pump. The main purpose
of a ladder truck is to carry ladders, the main purpose of a rescue truck is to
carry rescue equipment, and the main purpose of a fire engine is to pump water.
Sometimes they mix and match and it gets complicated, just like my home repair
jobs but with less bleeding. The new truck’s pump will have a capacity of 1,500
gallons per minute, enough to fill your bathtub in, oh, two seconds. The 1988
truck has a 1,000 gpm pump. It would take three seconds. Who wants to wait that
long?

That much water flow isn’t needed
for your typical house fire – well, not usually – but insurance companies like
to see a nice, big capacity for the worst case scenario. For big fires, big
water is there, and if one hydrant can’t supply the truck it could be fed from
two hydrants. If Albion’s water system went down or a big fire broke out in
rural areas, it could go to the nearest pond, lake, or stream and pump through
large diameter hose for miles.

Also required for a fire engine to
operate is a crew of firefighters. Technology hasn’t advanced that much. Most
experts agree that a minimum of four human beings is required to crew an
engine, and the new truck will have seating for six. The 1988 truck had, in
theory, seating for three, on one bench seat.

In actual practice the older truck
has a manual transmission, and the guy sitting in the middle sometimes couldn’t
help at the scene because his knee got bruised so badly when he didn’t get out
of the way of the gear shift lever. In my experience going from third to fourth
was especially dangerous. Lately we’ve taken to hauling two firefighters on
that truck, and I can also say from experience that being the only guy on board
besides the pump operator can be a very lonely experience.

(I once drove that truck alone to a
brush fire, then deployed, pressurized, and operated a hoseline by myself until
more firefighters arrived from another call. It took me two days to recover.)

Something else required for a fire
engine is safety. You can get two kinds of fire trucks. One is a standard cab,
which means basically a pump was put on the body of a regular truck: the same
thing that might be hauling grain, bread, or ice cream. Yum. Bread.

We chose a custom cab, because it’s
designed to actually be a fire truck, from the ground up. More sturdily built,
better designed, and more capable of keeping us alive in a worst case scenario.

So, let’s review: The new fire
engine pumps more water, carries more manpower and equipment, has updated technology,
is safer, and through sheer newness is more reliable.

Earlier
today I finished going through the galleys for my upcoming short story
collection, Storm Chaser Shorts, and
sent it in to my publisher. It’s now to be released by Whiskey Creek Press in
June – one year after its parent novel, Storm
Chaser, came out.

I’ll give
you the exact release date as soon as I know it; it’s possible that, like Storm Chaser, it’ll be released as an
e-book on different formats at different times. Unfortunately, Whiskey Creek
doesn’t offer its shorter works in print format, but they do sell them as HTML
or RTF files, so Storm Chaser Shorts will
be readable on pretty much any electronic platform.

Over the
next few weeks I’ll let everyone know more details about the stories, which
feature different characters from the original book and cover several different
genres. Thanks to everyone who bought Storm
Chaser and gave it such high praise – this new work is all because of you!

Every now and then all the little news and
pop culture items I collect go into one column, usually because, say, roofers
are banging on my house and I can’t concentrate on anything longer. Be warned:
Finding out what’s going on in the world may cause you to lose your faith in
humanity:

A video
clip of Adolf Hitler giving a speech was recently used in a commercial to sell
shampoo. Okay, did they even look at that guy’s hair? The Stalin conditioner
doesn’t seem appropriate, either.

Speaking of
inappropriate use of historical figures, The Abraham Lincoln Presidential
Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, responded to a protest by pulling
the bobblehead doll they were selling. It was a figure of John Wilkes Booth,
the man who assassinated Lincoln. The figure carries a gun. It would be roughly
equivalent to showing that Adolf Hitler commercial at a Holocaust Museum.

A new fad
has stars in bikinis showing off their “baby bumps”. They used to call it
pregnancy. Of course, the original baby bumps were two sources of baby
nutrition, a bit higher up – most celebrities couldn’t use those for any
practical purpose without giving their infants plastic poisoning.

An
explosion in Georgia killed a man known for fighting to keep chickens on his
property. Police list Colonel Sanders as a person of interest.

A study of
more than 222,000 people indicated that sitting too long can kill you. Four out
of five of the researchers doing the study died.

Another
study found that eating red meat can be unhealthy, especially to cows. After
all, zombies eat only red meat – and they look terrible.

Federal
agents recently shot dead a man involved in a murder for hire plot. It’s perhaps
ironic that they didn’t get a bonus for it.

Nobody’s
talking much these days about the US government’s “Fast and Furious” program,
which sent thousands of firearms over the border into the hands of Mexican
criminals. It’s nice to know the Obama administration’s doing something about
our international trade imbalance.

An Easter
egg hunt in Colorado was canceled because of rude, selfish, pushy behavior – by
the parents. In related news, fifteen years later a riot broke out among
parents trying to be first in line to get the diploma at high school
graduation.

President
Obama was recorded telling the President of Russia that after his last election
he’d have “more flexibility”. Obama then presented him with a gift of frozen
pancakes, and told him not to flip them until November.

North Korea
is downplaying the discovery that their “weather” satellite had lettering on it
that translated to “Insert bomb here”. Top officials, speaking anonymously, are
embarrassed that they forgot to insert the bomb.

The largest
known breed of rats in the world has been discovered invading the Florida Keys.
Weird. I thought that state’s Presidential primary was over.

Scientists
recently announced that most of the Moon seems to be made up of material it got
from Earth. NASA astronauts were immediately dispatched to serve the Moon with
an IRS audit notice.

The
comedian Gallagher has retired after having a heart attack. Maybe if he’d eaten
the fruit instead of smashing it …

Speaking of
retiring, another man is accused of sawing off his own foot in an attempt to
avoid working. You have to admire his non-work ethic, but wonder about his lack
of imagination.

It was
recently announced that liberal activist Jane Fonda will be portraying … wait
for it … Nancy Reagan, in a movie. Also cast is Alec Baldwin as Ronald Reagan,
and Newt Gingrich as Jimmy Carter.

New rules
say beach volleyball players will not have to wear bikinis at the 2012 London
Olympics. This was followed immediately by the networks scheduling beach
volleyball during prime time, until it was discovered the rule does not permit nude volleyball, and that in
fact the players might actually cover up more. Beach volleyball is now
scheduled in the 5 a.m. slot.

Recently
two asteroids, one the size of a tour bus, buzzed by the Earth on the same day
director James Cameron made the deepest undersea dive ever. Coincidence? Or an
act of self-preservation by going to one of the most dangerous spots on earth
to escape a possible collision, thus proving him brilliantly insane? Probably
coincidence.

I recently
read an article asking what might happen if all 350 million toilets in the
United States were flushed at the same time. I can only imagine that a humor
columnist facing a deadline came up with that question. Unfortunately, the federal
government got wind of it (ahem) and is now organizing the Department of
Hydraulics (DoH), to mandate guidelines that will prevent any future mass
dumping. I don’t think they should go up that creek. Especially without a
paddle.

Apparently
the person who bombed Kim Kardashian with flour is a member of the People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). No word on whether they were planning
to bake her or fry her.

Water ice
was recently found on Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun. Insert Uranus
joke here. Or maybe I just did.

That’s
the news roundup … generally everyone made it through unharmed, except for John
Wilkes Booth fans. The sad part of that is that there probably are some.

There are certain first times that I suspect surprise all writers, no matter how often they may have fantasized about them.

Emily and I went camping last weekend at Chain O’ Lakes State Park, where several scenes in Storm Chaser were set. At the gatehouse the lady who checked us in asked all the normal questions, including, of course, my name.

“Hunter,” I replied. “First name Mark.” (Which for me was the logical answer to that question.)

She gave me a startled look. “The writer?”

I’d like to say I responded with something witty, but the best I could do was stammer, “Yes …” In addition to having never been recognized by a stranger, there was a lingering fear that park employees might not like the way I portrayed their workplace.

“I have your book on my Kindle!”

Turns out she claimed to like it very much, and took my business card with the promise of telling her coworkers about Storm Chaser. She even got my autograph. By that I mean she got my signature on the check-in paperwork.

That was the first time someone who didn’t already know me recognized me as a novelist … and yes, it did make my day.

Cancer survivor Jennifer Will is coming to the Noble County Relay for Life Saturday to tell her story of battling breast cancer. Will, the mother of two and wife of Noble County optometrist Dr. Matt Will, will help headline the Fight Back Ceremony, which starts at 9 p.m. at the West Noble football field and track, south of Ligonier along SR 5.

Will joins another cancer survivor, Judy Middleton of Albion, and the two will share their stories of fighting back against the disease at the May 19-20 American Cancer Society event. Activities begin at 10 a.m. Saturday with the National Anthem and presentation of colors, and go on until the closing ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

“It’s our responsibility to fight back and reduce the number of our own family members and neighbors who face cancer,” says Chairperson Carla Fiandt. “We’re here so those who face cancer will be supported, those who lost their battle will not be forgotten and so, one day, cancer will be eliminated.”